


Even If

by kitkattaylor



Category: My Name is Courgette
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-08 08:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13453965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkattaylor/pseuds/kitkattaylor
Summary: a boy with hair so black it looks blue





	1. I Care

**We’re all the same; there’s no one left to love us.**

 

 

_I care_

 

Someone lost their kite. It must have broken, or snapped from its string. Either way, it ended up in the ocean and then here, in the mud, at Icare’s feet. Bending to reach it, Icare let his fingers brush the slimy wet surface of its fabric and pull it from where it was lodged in the sand. It flapped restlessly in a sudden gust of wind, tugging against Icare’s hand like a freshly caught pilchard. ‘Shhh’ Icare soothed it, although he didn’t think _it_ he thought _her_. He placed his palm against the cross, where the bones were torn and delicate. The wind fell down around his ears and in the stillness he folded the kite flat on his chest, his hand pressed to its centre. The two outward points of its arrowhead fluttered like baby arms.

The sky was like the pearlescent inside of an oyster. There was one, half buried in the sand, its lustre dirtied. There was also snags of plastic and seaweed covered nets, stretched out like some great intestine. Icare lifted his knees as he walked, cradling the kite from the wind that licked in with a tongue like sandpaper. The tide was out, turning the harbour into a graveyard of boats. A haunting cry whistled through their sails, with an occasional metallic clatter. (Icare had to blink away the image of men with chains on their ankles.) The wind felt weaker where it nudged his legs, like he didn’t have enough gravity to obstruct it. It wasn’t hard to imagine himself as a ghost. Wherever he looked he was alone; abandoned by humans and their sea, even their sun. It was a pale moon that whispered from between grey cloud.

He let his fingers trail the sides of the boats. He didn’t have to stretch his arm far. Weaving his way amid their rounded whale bellies, he stopped at a small sail boat rocked up against the outer harbour wall. It looked to be falling apart; it didn’t have a sail. Carefully easing the kite to its hull, he pulled the sleeves of his jumper over his hands and lifted himself inside. The boat groaned and Icare stood still. He arched his neck to look up the lonely mast, wavering against the sky like a hacked tree trunk. Two little birds circled into view and it was the first sign of life he’d seen all morning.

“So we didn’t miss Judgement Day.” He addressed the kite. It flickered with the breeze that dipped its hands into the boat, beneath the main path of the wind. Icare sat to join it on the floor, his arms propped up around his knees, before lying down, his body the length of the boat. It might be seven now, meaning two hurried hands were about to routinely open his door, two glazed eyes grazing over his bed, where he wasn’t sleeping. Icare knew that he’d be angry; he’d open Camille’s door with urgency and she’d moan when he’d shout. And when Icare did trudge back to the house there’d be a hand to his collar, words spat, maybe even the hit of knuckles. It had happened before. Though not yet with him. Icare closed his eyes and almost wished the boat would untether, that the tide would come in and he’d wake up with nothing on the horizon. It would save them all the trouble.

His grandmother had named him Icare. She was French and he was used to kids laughing and saying it like _I care_. He’d always found that funny, that when asked his name people would reply with ‘I care!’ Icare – _E - Car –_ was a ‘ _beautiful name for a beautiful boy_ ’, one with hair so black it looked blue. She’d tell him that when she brushed it, her shaky hands carding through his baby hair, thin and soft. If mum was in the room she’d snap ‘ _it’s Courgette_ ’, and then grandma would hum a gentle, unknown song. ‘ _Because that’s what was in the fridge_ ’, she’d say when Icare asked her why she’d named him that. She referred to the day he was born, when there was a blood stain on the carpet, sizzling with salt, and the echo of a door slammed. She made it sound like an excuse for a poorly cooked meal, as if she’d been lacking the right ingredients. ( _Grand-maman_ _,_ he remembers whispering, his tiny fingers brushing the white hairs from her sunken face. _I’m sorry, grand-maman._ His mother’s fingers bruised Icare’s wrist as she pulled him away. _I’m sorry, mum_ _.)_

He’d always been good with shapes; he’d built his own kite. He used to build boats, too, out of beer cans. The kite was made from found objects: a discarded scarf, two bamboo sticks, the string that had held together a parcel. On a windy day, he let it out his attic window. It had surged into the sky and danced tip-toed on the clouds, as if it had been desperate to escape – to breathe. Icare can remember how it later rained. How his body had hollowed out with the shock and his heart had beat up into his ribcage. How when the silence became loud it started to rain, to thunder, and it wasn’t the scolding he’d wanted; it was a reprobation from God. He’d felt his grandma’s eyes fierce on his skin, and the words ‘ _she’ll drink herself to death_ ’ – the ones Courgette wasn’t to worry about – taunting him.

Icare’s knuckles were white where they held the kite, a darkened silhouette to the sky. His arms shook and the broken cross drooped sadly, like a head hung. His breathing came in short, squeezed breaths and his grip tightened. The urge clawed through his bones and the fabric became taut in the corners. The breeze worried softly yet busily at his skin, tugging the hairs of his arms in effort to stop him. His pulse stamped menacingly when finally it crescendoed, and the blood drained from his ears. His fingers loosened numbly and he let the kite float back to lie beside him. He quickly became shivery and curled onto his side, facing the kite. He’d been like this recently, and every time it overwhelmed him he was left feeling emptier, and even less like himself. Now he paws his hands further down inside his sleeves and feels his head suddenly heavy with sleep, like it were filled with sand. His eyes twitch with the falling granules, and so he closes them again. They burn a little and weep with a heated moisture. He hadn’t been able to sleep all night. Now he submerges without notice, whispered voices and waves lapping at the edges.

_/_

“-there’s a fucking kid asleep in the boat. I know! C’mon lad, get up. Ah, I think he’s fucking passed out-“

The daylight was obvious even with his eyes closed. A rough hand shook his shoulder and he could hear the water sloshing up against the sides. The voice became clearer and with it Icare’s heart jolted. He opened one eye to see a large, bearded face looming over him. The pebble-dark eyes rolled back in the head and he slapped Icare twice on the arm.

“Up! Up! What you think you’re doing, sleeping in my boat...”

Icare scrambled to standing, grabbing the mast and then the hand offered to him, hauling him into the sea. He startled at the sudden chill to his lower legs, but didn’t hesitate in pushing through it to get out onto shore. However, the meaty hand that had shook him awake seized him again, yanking him to halt. Icare stared up at him – small and frozen, ready to be reprimanded – and the man regarded him hesitantly, then smiled and slapped him again, his chest this time.

“One too many last night, eh son?”

He chuckled lowly and swiped the kite carelessly from inside the boat, tossing it into the sea behind him. Icare’s heart clenched but he didn’t protest. The panic was still thriving in his veins, and there was a fading handprint on his chest and two other men watching him from the harbour wall.

“No, I-“

The man splashed around him, reaching up to one of the men. Icare nudged his fingers over his sleeves and sighed quietly, looking down to where his feet sunk in the mud.

“Yeah, no yeah.”

“ _Yeah, no yeah_ ,” the man mimicked, lifting what looked to be the sail over his head and splashing his way back around Icare, who felt glaringly in the way. “Don’t think I hadn’t had my fair share of them sort of nights in my youth.”

Icare smiled politely but began anxiously planning his exit. As the sail was set down in the boat, billowing in the breeze, Icare was struck by a shimmering colour in the sky. Another kite; he traced its string to a small girl on the shore. His heart that had clenched seemed to shrivel, tapping a pathetic echo of a pulse inside his chest. The sea bulged around his shins – his trainers heavy and sodden, his jeans like seaweed around his skin – but he didn’t feel the numbing cold, and forgot all about the movements of the man behind him. He stared with an aching sorrow at the kite in the sea, who too had been looking up at the kite in the sky.

“Fucking, cunt-fuck-“

Icare tensed. The man muttered a string of feeble ‘ow-ow-ow’, and Icare turned to see him shaking his finger.

“Sorry,” he grumbled, sucking it briefly to his mouth.

Icare was blank beyond the feeling of his heart, before registering who it was standing in front of him: that it was afternoon, and the harbour was lazily humming with midsummer. Arranging the messy strands of hair from his forehead, he squinted into the sun, which seemed suddenly brighter.

“I’m sorry...for trespassing on your boat. I thought it was abandoned.”

“Abandoned?!” The man coughed over his laugh, like it had caught in his throat. “It’s being built! Didn’t you see the fine handiwork? Sure, it needs a bit of polishing-“

“-I’m sorry.”

The man paused, the same as when he’d seized Icare back from walking away. Icare’s quiet words lingered between them, and his face softened.

“No, no, I’m only joking, son. See here-“

He bent to hit the water away from the slats of the boat, where Icare could just about make out the name ‘ _Luke_.’

“See I’m building it for the boss’ son. He’s going to be our next apprentice, his dad had it lined up for years now. So this’ll be his sixteenth birthday present. See we build boats- What age are you? Sixteen too?”

Icare nodded, and the man smiled broadly and scratched his head.

“So you at school then?”

The breeze – much settled from this morning – was beginning to shiver along Icare’s arms, even with his jumper and the muted warmth from the sun. The boats chimed like a kid’s rattle, and Icare crossed his arms. He tried not to fidget his leg with the agitation to leave.

He nodded again. “But we only just moved here, so...”

His words trailed off into silence. The man latched onto his revelation with all kinds of questions ( _where did you come from? how have you found it so far?_ ) before noticing Icare’s distraction. Icare hadn’t exactly noticed it himself, only that his eyes had curved around the shape of the boat and he’d begun to think about the models he used to make, from the beer cans, and then his mind had started scribbling diagrams.

“You ever built a boat?”

The man’s words were kindly, and Icare turned to find his face looming down again, obscuring the sun. He blushed along the tips of his ears and looked down at the water.

“No.” A seagull squawked; the boat glugged happily. Icare took a breath. “It’s a nice boat.”

“It is,” the man agreed readily. His hand clasped Icare’s shoulder, his fingers on his neck. Icare wobbled a bit, like a cattail. He thought that he would rather like to learn to build real boats, but the position was taken.

As if reading his mind, the man squeezed his shoulder. The pads of his fingertips were calloused and scratchy. “I know I said about Luke, but if you ever were interested in training, I’d be happy to teach you. After you finish school, that is.”

Icare nodded a third time, not meeting the man’s eyes. Unable to find the right words (or afraid to speak them) he simply slipped out from under the hand and salvaged the kite, slowly drifting further out to sea.

“That yours?” The man asked, incredulous.

The kite gushed with water, sagging limp and withered – and broken – in his arms. He waited until it only dripped before wriggling his icy toes, forcing a final smile at the man, and heaving each leg up to walk.

“Wai- Call me Tomas!”

Icare turned to walk backwards, motioning to his kite.

“Or Dezzy, from Denzel, second name... What’s yours?”

“I can fix this,” Icare determined quietly.


	2. The Kite

 

_The Kite_

 

A mattress drifted out in the centre of the room, yellow-stained and exhausted like something dumped in a river, slowly drowning. Simon floated on one of the floor cushions; large squares of red, faded tapestry material – he supposes they once felt decadent. The cushion inside had been squashed so that the bone in his elbow touched the floor, the beige carpet. He shifted twice, but all his body felt too angular.

Stretching out across two of the cushions, he let himself spiral in the darkness of his eyelids. The room swerved beneath him, bulging up like the heaving of someone’s chest. His stomach churned slightly and he opened his eyes, the edges of his vision dissolving like a vignette, or fire to paper, the crawling black edges. He couldn’t pretend to not see the guitar on the wall, raised high like a cross at the altar. It protruded from the peeling wallpaper – granny flowers, yellow and lime – like the tintinnabulum of Pompei, or an eagle in flight. He remembers his dad, being perched on his shoulders as he ran, holding onto nothing. His mum hoisting him into her arms and screeching words while dad ran on, arms like wings, ascending. ‘ _Fucking champ, your dad. Went out like a rock star.’_

Lifting up by the muscles of his stomach, Simon hovered in the silence. It buzzed, like static on the television. He wrung out his ear and scrunched up his forehead. His brain throbbed like your finger when you slam it in a door, or your toe when you stub it. Clawing at the leather seat to his left – it smelt of car seat still – he unwound the stiffness of his spine and extracted himself from the pillows. His arm knocked into the plant beside the chair, the one with the long, droopy leaves, like sad rabbit ears. They lay forlornly onto the end of his bed, always in the act of prayer, or pleading. It was dying; it was turning coarse and brown. Only Simon remembered to water it, sometimes.

He stood still, as if his long limbs were that of a giant, like his back hunched up into the ceiling. He could graze it with his nails if he raised his heels. He was alone; it was morning. The clubs would be left with bodies slumped like leeches. Somewhere, beneath the sunrise, the bass pulsated, kicking up as if against its grave. His mum would be threadbare behind the bar, pinging; her eyes like pinpricks in her skull. She’d left a tenner in his trainers – his birthday present – so if she wanted breakfast she’d be panhandling by the hour.

The portable heater gurgled and whined, like it had blood in its throat. He’d made cheese toast and left the grill on; it eased the freeze a little. It got so cold in this flat the walls felt damp. Carefully crossing the room – one hand to his wrist, like the hand that had held it when he’d been caught stealing – he pressed up against the wall beside the French windows. The thin white curtains responded like petals, bursting out into the room, soft and sad. They were equally sad as the silky skirts of women, kicking invisible legs up in a dance. Sometimes, the curtains curved into a person, head bent towards Simon, sympathetic. He looked beyond them, peeking out to where he was sat again – the little boy – up on the concrete wall. A scent that could only be described as _trees_ filtered through the shaky window panes, and a spacious brightness nudged its nose into their room. Cars passing; morning radio; a ball bouncing-

Simon rolled onto his back. The French windows were never opened, nor the curtains. The little boy flickered like old tape between the white.

The room always looked darker when he turned back. In a blink, the small details overwhelmed the picture. Everything was sunken, like a landfill. They didn’t own furniture that didn’t slouch. Pizza boxes; grotesque ravages of grease, jaws slacken wide. Cans and bottles forming tiny skylines; ash like volcanoes on the coffee table. Paper towels and a ruler, echoing in the scratch of its plastic on wood. They had a Christmas tree, fake and wiry; it had a condom for an angel. The fan – leftover from summer – made a twisted, looming shadow where it sat in the corner on top of the amps. The heaps of washing resembled monsters; Simon could hear his giggles from when he’d hid beneath them, two dirty socks for hands. There was the mousetrap he always poked the cheese from... There, the cheap keyboard he wouldn’t play...

His mother’s makeup was scattered where it always was: smudged into the carpet, beside the table leg. Pots and palettes spilled like upturned soil, mascara wands drying out like beetles, legs like unspooled thread. When he knelt, a cocktail of powder and glitter pressed into his trackies. The glitter reminded him of wet pavements at night, tears that caught in the light when you turned your cheek. Simon searched the remnants of her stage, her doll-sized dressing room. The mirror was concealed beneath a discarded wet-wipe. A gaunt face cried out from between the folds: lipstick stain like a bruise, erased skin the colour of wet sand. The small rectangle of glass was sticky with baby lipgloss, the ones you got in magazines. Simon didn’t like to use the mirror in the bathroom, the full oval that hung over the sink. The bathroom was as small as the cubicles on trains. Pastel paint melted on each surface, while the light buzzed and flickered, hollowing out his every shadow. The bath cradled dead flies and spiders, oozing a large slug of red, brown like old blood. It was hair dye.

Simon had tried to sleep when he got in, but he couldn’t, so his eyes were bloodshot. They looked like bruised apples, with the red embroidering the hazel. He was tall, but awkward. Broad-shouldered, but bony. Pale and freckly. His eyelashes were so pale that he looked hairless, like one of those fucking ugly alien like cats. Angling the small frame of the mirror, he bared his teeth, faked a smile. It looked fake so he stopped. Snapping the pocket mirror shut, the reflection just glimpsed at his hardened jaw, his prominent nose and swathe of auburn hair (naturally, it was plain ginger.) He never allowed any chance to see it, but he traced one finger over the indentation: halfway up his forehead down onto his cheek, just short of his eye. The memory always brought with it the metallic taste of blood, the realisation that’s what blood tasted like.

The little boy reminded him of another boy, one with hair so black it looked blue. Same absorbing eyes; same delicately drawn balance with the world... He’d wondered once if the little boy was a ghost. (Courgette said, once, that he felt like a ghost.) Simon shrugged his jacket on, the one with the tartan lining. The grey pockets of his trousers dragged with the weight of his keys. (It wasn’t that he was jealous, he just didn’t suit the name.) He hesitated at the doorstep, even looked back once he’d shut the door. There was no mail, other than the letter stubbornly creasing under the doormat. They’d only tell him what he already knew.

With fists balled in his pockets, his knuckles grazed the note from his mum. (Small hands, another envelope, this note only an I.O.U _._ ) They suck you dry at Christmas; Simon knew this. You don’t get time for thoughtful gifts. He felt instantly heavier when he ducked outside, like a stone dropped into still water. He always walked as if into a gale. The air was thin; it seemed to dissolve with every step. Maybe it was just that the concrete walls were so dense. They loomed around him like cliffs. Briefly lifting and replacing the cap on his head, Simon shouldered forward through the estate, his eyes as cold and impenetrable as the ground he stared at. He wondered what plans his friends had for the day.

(His old friends.) The door chimed when he opened it, and he hated that. He could feel their eyes on him from the register. He paced the aisle twice before snatching what he wanted. ( _Ungrateful;_ the word spread like poison from where his palm scrunched the wrapping.) There was someone else in line before him, and he hated that too. He skipped between his feet, then stopped, scuffed the plastic of his shoe instead.

“Just this?”

“Yeah, yeah, just this.”

He didn’t look at the cashier. He focused his gaze on the assortment of crap spread at the till: gum, charity bracelets, packets of Crazy Bones. Some girl was twittering on from the radio; the radio was somewhere by the cashier’s feet. Music started to play and the guy started humming as he counted Simon’s change. It was £7.71 – would he hurry the fuck up. Someone else came in (‘cos the door chimed again) and whoever it was was muttering. Simon began fidgeting again. Mostly, he’d learnt, when people muttered behind his back, they were talking about him.

“Thank you, sir...” He’d said it with hesitance. Simon held out his hand, his other still distinctly buried in his pocket. He could feel the eyes on him again, he couldn’t help it: how he lifted his hand to rub under his nose. The shop walls were white and green, somewhat like a dentists. He was conscious of the light sweat on his forehead, of the tongue in his mouth, the smoke that clung to his clothes, to his pores. The coins dropped into his hand, and then the cake, and his muscles clenched to move when behind him they muttered ‘ _pikey_.’

“You what mate?”

Some nights ago, his mum had come home and Simon pretended to be asleep. She was with some bloke, and she was going _shhh_. Simon held himself still as glass under the bedsheets. They bustled around him, heavy-footed and throaty. ‘ _Get him a good shag_ ,’ the man suggested, because mum had mentioned that it was his eighteenth soon. She wheezed around her smoke and the guy said ‘ _What? A shag can be free.’_ Hot tears sprung onto the cool of Simon’s cheeks, and he could do nothing.

‘ _He shags enough. No, all our Simon wants is a letter from his boyfriend. Don’t look so surprised, we all know he’s gay. Look,_ I _never cared nothing. I couldn’t give two shits who he stick his dick into. It’s Simon who’s a fucking pussy about it.’_

“Out! Out!”

Simon had swung at him. The hands on his back were large and uncaring as they shoved him out the door. He’d said more. Simon shivered when outside, and then his whole body began to shake. His mouth tasted acidic as he dragged himself back to the flat. He didn’t go inside; he sunk down to the floor. Who will it be tonight, Simon? Girl or boy? The cake was flattened and crumbly when he pulled it out his pocket. He wasn’t thinking about his old friends, and what plans they might have for the day. He wasn’t thinking about anyone as he flicked his thumb over his lighter – over and over.

He tore the wrapping off with his teeth, then balanced the cake on his knee. It was blueberry and it looked bruised.

‘Thanks, mum,’ he thought, and said “Happy Birthday, me.” And he held the lighter over the cake. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, so he pretended he could blow the flame out and scooped a chunk of cake into his mouth. It was sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> because of course I find gay ships in the film My life as a courgette! (Gorgeous film, you should watch) (This fic will be written slooooowly or not at all until the summer) (it will have 6 parts)


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